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Print Price: $99.95

Format:
Hardback
240 pp.
2 b/w line drawings, 6.125" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780199873654

Publication date:
December 2013

Imprint: OUP US

Battered Women's Protective Strategies

Stronger Than You Know

Sherry Hamby

Battered Women's Protective Strategies: Stronger Than You Know challenges the pervasive stereotypes that depict battered women as passive and shows how to use the strength of battered women to create better and more nuanced research and intervention. Through an alternative strengths-based framework, Hamby deftly illustrates how battered women are in fact not passive and in denial but are active and diligent in protecting themselves and their loved ones. In addition to the traditional risks of being battered, many women who experience abuse face the risk of homelessness or the threat of losing custody of their children in a divorce battle. Understanding the full range of risks is necessary to understanding the complex problem of battering, and in this book, quantitative, qualitative, and clinical data reveal a wide range of protective strategies: immediate defensive responses in the moments following an attack, protecting children and other loved ones, reaching out for social support, turning to religious and spiritual resources, and engaging formal helpseeking.

Using an approach called Multiple Criteria Decision Making, this book outlines a procedure for comprehensive risk assessment, safety planning, and risk management. Many, many strategies are still largely invisible to providers and researchers, and the steps that women take that receive very little attention or acknowledgement in the domestic violence field. The author identifies the vital role that researchers can play by simply acknowledging the variety of approaches that battered women employ. In this book's two new studies, survivors of domestic violence identify 133 different protective strategies in open-ended questions. These and other insights from survivor testimony make this volume the largest and most comprehensive review of battered women's strengths to date.

Readership : Suitable for people who have some tie to the domestic violence field. This includes violence researchers, domestic violence advocates, and other providers with ties to domestic violence such as psychologists, social workers, law enforcement and health care providers. This book would work well for students because, although academic, it also has enough vignettes to make it engaging for student and provider audiences. Victims, survivors, and their loved ones are a potential market as well.

1. Introduction: A Re-Framing of Stereotypes of Battered Women
2. A Holistic Approach to the Complex Problem of Battering
3. Protective Strategies in the Context of Battered Women's True Risk Burden: The Multitude of Risks Batterers Can Create
4. Understanding the Full Context of Violence: Financial and Institutional Issues that Constrain Coping
5. Social Issues, Practical Concerns, and Personal Values that Influence Coping Strategies
6. Immediate Situational Strategies
7. Protecting Children, Family, Friends, Co-Workers and Pets
8. Reaching Out for Social Support and Navigating the Challenges of Information Management
9. Turning to Spiritual and Religious Resources
10. Using Formal Services
11. Invisible Strategies
12. Bringing a More Holistic Approach to Services and Tools for Intervention
13. Conclusion: Recognizing Protective Strategies Can Create Progress
References
Index

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Sherry Hamby, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor and the Director of the Life Paths Research Program at the University of the South. She was appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Center for Disease Control, and she joined the Research Advisory Council of the National Latin@ Network. She is also the founding Editor of Psychology of Violence.

Making Sense in the Social Sciences - Margot Northey, Lorne Tepperman and Patrizia Albanese
Poverty, Battered Women, and Work in U.S. Public Policy - Lisa D. Brush
Helping Battered Women - Edited by Albert R. Roberts
The Victimization of Women - Michelle L. Meloy and Susan L. Miller
Restorative Justice and Violence Against Women - Edited by James Ptacek
Coercive Control - Evan Stark

Special Features

Unprecedented application of Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to domestic violence, resulting in a new strengths-based framework and the VIGOR tool.
Thought-provoking participation in the trending conversation on violence research's shift to strengths, resilience, protective factors, and positive psychology.
Touching survivor stories that challenge the assertion that battered women are helpless and in denial.